Request for requests: You might have noticed that recently <!-- comments --> started to appear on many different rather complicated records
in xmls created by esf2xml script. It is now really easy for me to add such comments, so if you want to see something annotated, just tell me precisely
where to put what kind of comments, and I'll quickly add them.
Comments are simple but they have huge impact on ease of modding.
Just imagine what pain it used to be to edit diplomacy before it got proper annotations,
and how easy it is now (and how it would be even easier if the rest of fields got annotations as well):
Code:
<rec type="DIPLOMACY_RELATIONSHIPS_ARRAY">
<rec type="DIPLOMACY_RELATIONSHIP">
<i>573864472</i><!-- france -->
<ary type="DIPLOMACY_RELATIONSHIP_ATTITUDES_ARRAY">
<draa/><!-- State gift received -->
<draa/><!-- Military alliance -->
<draa/><!-- Alliance Broken -->
<draa/><!-- Alliances not honoured -->
<draa drift="-1" current="15" limit="0" active1="yes" extra="15" active2="yes"/><!-- Enemy of my enemy -->
<draa/><!-- Trade Agreement -->
<draa/><!-- Trade Agreement broken -->
<draa/><!-- War -->
<draa/><!-- Peace Treaty -->
<draa/><!-- Allied with enemy -->
<draa extra="-15" active2="yes"/><!-- War declared on friend -->
<draa/><!-- Unreliable ally -->
<draa/><!-- Territorial expansion -->
<draa/><!-- Backstabber -->
<draa/><!-- Assassination attempts -->
<draa drift="0" current="-10" limit="0" active1="no"/><!-- Religion -->
<draa drift="0" current="-10" limit="0" active1="no"/><!-- Government type -->
<draa drift="1" current="-80" limit="0" active1="yes"/><!-- Historical Friendship/Grievance -->
<draa/><!-- Acts of sabotage -->
<draa/><!-- Acts of espionage -->
<draa/><!-- Threats of Attack -->
<draa/><!-- Unknown (does not seem to do anything) -->
</ary>
<no/><!-- trade agreement -->
<i>0</i><!-- military access turns (-1 = unlimited) -->
<s>neutral</s><!-- relationship -->
<i>0</i>
<u>0</u>
<i>0</i>
<i>0</i>
<i>0</i>
<i>0</i>
<i>0</i>
<u>0</u>
<u>0</u>
<ary type="REGULAR_PAYMENTS"/>
<u>0</u>
<u>0</u>
<ary type="ALLIED_IN_WAR_AGAINST"/>
<u4_ary>0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0</u4_ary>
<u>0</u>
<s>neutral</s><!-- this is NOT relationship -->
<no/>
<no/>
<i>-85</i>
</rec>
</rec>
If you know the meaning of various <u>s and <i>s, just give me precise locations and comments, and esf2xml will start inserting them.
It's pretty easy usually.
I'm especially interested in CAI code which is filled with ridiculous number of weird ids.
Right now it's a huge pain to edit so many things, because you also need to edit weird numbers in corresponding CAI entries (or face CTDs later).
If we got everything annotated, modding would be easier, and even better - it would become much easier
for me to
write scripts to automate common modding tasks for a double win.
This also applies to meaning of whole records (which we can convert to really pretty and meaningful xml tags),
arrays of integers (u4_ary, i4_ary), and any other data.
The more information I have, the better will be xmls produced by esf2xml.
The difference between low-level xmls (barely easier to edit than with EsfEditor),
and high-level xmls we get thanks to all our knowledge, is just huge.
Just give me everything you know.